Ted Bell - Tsar

He climbed up behind the wheel and cranked the engine. He was just pulling out of the lot, planning to hit the high school over on East Crawford Street, when the flashers lit up in his rearview, and he knew party time was over. He smiled, got the little snub-nose pistol out of the pocket in his baker’s jacket, and stamped on the go pedal. No way he could outrun the local PD’s Crown Vic, but he could get where he wanted to get to, at least. He didn’t speed, just kept going, acting like he didn’t know there was a squad car right on his ass, blinkers and sirens going.

“Pull over!” he heard from the loudspeaker. Pull over? Were they crazy? The whole town was going to go up in smoke in a nanosecond or so!

He hung a right on East Iron Street. It led all the way up a hill to a town park he’d staked out earlier. It was just some trees, a creek, and a baseball diamond, but it sat up high overlooking the little town, and he thought it would be a perfect place to bring his mission to an exciting conclusion. He slowed going up the hill, taking his time, watching the rosy dawn spread across the doomed village. The cops dropped back, content to follow him up the hill, see what the hell Happy the Baker was up to. They were probably running his plates, too. Which was good. They’d see the plates belonged on a 1973 Chevy truck, just like the one he was driving. The devil was in the details.

It was five-thirty A.M.

The deadline his guys in Iran had put in the cell phone he’d left at the mayor’s house was six A.M. Central Standard Time. Half an hour. Plenty of time to enjoy the moment.

He crested the hill and drove under the little arch that said “Hickory Hill Park,” his hideout. He wound around a little, cops right behind him, until he came to the spot he’d chosen that first evening, before he started stalking the mayor and her family. It was what they called a scenic overlook, and he parked right out at the edge of the little lot there. Then he killed the motor, slipped the snubbie into his pocket, and sat there waiting for the fuzz to come bust him.

Come to Papa, boys.

He watched the cops exit the cruiser in his rearview. They got out with their guns drawn, approaching him from the rear on either side of the truck. When the guy on his side was abreast of the driver’s window, he rolled it down, gave the young cop a big smile, and said, “Was I going too fast?”

“Sir, I’d like your driver’s license and registration, please.”

“Absolutely, officer,” Paddy said, handing him the fake license and registration papers.

“Your real name is Happy? That right?”

“Yessir. Named after my old man. He was Happy, too.”

“Sir,” the cop said, looking from his license photo to him and back again, “are you aware that this town is under an evacuation order?”

“I was wondering where the hell everyone went. Evacuation, huh? What’s going on?”

“How did you get this vehicle past the police barricades, sir?”

“Weren’t any barricades up when I arrived.”

“And when was that?”

“Few days ago.”

“And in the meantime?”

“You mean since I arrived?”

“Correct.”

“I’ve been asleep.”

“You’ve been asleep for three days?”

“Correct.”

“Where?”

“At the Motel 6. Real nice place.”

“Sir, no one sleeps for three whole days.”

“I do. I get these dang migraines. Once I get ’em, I just pop a bunch of Dalmane pills and nod on out. If I wake up, I take another handful. Wham, I’m out like a light. Hell, I just woke up a few hours ago.”

“And what exactly are you doing?”

“Delivering doughnuts.”

“To an empty town?”

“Well, see, here’s my thinking on that. Are you familiar with the franchise system?”

“Franchise system.”

“Yeah. My thought is this. I’m a baker. I bake the best damn doughnuts west of the Mississippi. And my business plan is to take my product direct to the consumer. I’ve delivered product in Junction City, Wichita, hell, all the way to Topeka. Don’t charge a nickel. I just deliver the boxes and let folks discover them for themselves. Now, I’ve got my Web-site address right on top of every box. People eat them, like them, and want more. That’s my strategy. Right now, I’m a one-man distribution system. But pretty soon, hell, folks are going to be knocking my door down. I’m going to open up a string of Happy Baker Doughnut Shoppes from here to Canada.”

“They do smell pretty darn good back there.”

“You see? That’s just what I’m saying! And you know what? They taste better than they smell. I’ve got some fresh glazed back there, you and your partner want to try a couple.”

“Hey, Gene, you want a warm doughnut?” the young cop said to his older, and much fatter, partner.

“Damn right I do, Andy,” Gene said. “You can smell them things a mile away.”

“There you go,” Paddy said with a smile. “Let me go around and open up the truck. We’ll have us a nice hot breakfast up here on the hill. I got a thermos of steaming black New Orleans French Quarter coffee back there, too.”

“Well, I guess we can do that. Not much else we can do. Andy, go back and get on the radio, will you? Tell them we’ve got a gentleman up here needs assistance, and we’ll be standing by in case, you know, anything happens.”

Happy climbed out and opened up the back. He slid the loading platform out and opened up a box of glazed, a box of cream-filled, and a box of jelly.

The two cops dug in, and while they did, he poured all three of them steaming cups of black coffee.

“Dang!” Andy said, polishing off a glazed in two bites. “That is one hell of a doughnut.”

“You feel happy, Andy?”

“I sure do.”

“Good. ’Cause that’s my new advertising slogan. ‘Eat Happy.’ You like it?”

“Love it. Can I have another one of the cream-filled?”

Ten minutes later, they were all sitting on the platform, talking football, whether or not the Chiefs would make the playoffs, and, of course, the war on terror. Andy said he thought the whole evacuation thing was a crock. Something dreamed up to scare ordinary Americans and make a laughingstock out of a whole town. That was the town consensus, he said.

“Yeah?” Paddy said. “Well, maybe you’re right. Will you excuse me a sec? I got to get my smokes. Call me crazy. I can’t drink my morning coffee without my smokes.”

“Go ahead. We’ll hold down the fort back here. See if the town blows up,” the young cop, Andy, said.

“Yeah,” Gene said. “I can hardly wait. What a damn deal we got here. If she blows, we’re screwed. If she doesn’t, we’re a national joke.”

It was five-fifty-five A.M. when Paddy unlocked the glove compartment and took out the rectangular black plastic box that had been sent from Moscow, through Iran, and delivered to him by courier in Miami a week ago today. It represented the very latest in remote-detonation technology. Every Zeta machine built had a GPS broadcast device built in, as well as the eight ounces of puttylike explosive called Hexagon. The machines also broadcast an ID number, much like the squawk system used by aircraft. So you always knew which machines were where before you decided to arm them or detonate them.

The box Paddy held in his hand contained dual microprocessors in addition to the radio-signal command that would cause the Zetas to explode. The system was currently preprogrammed to detonate only those devices now inside the city limits of Salina, Kansas.

“Hey, Happy,” Andy called, “c’mon back. You’re going to miss her if she goes.”

“Yeah, right,” Gene said, laughing, “Miss the whole shebang. The whole damn shooting match.”